Chapter 9
Xing Nuo, dangling by the back of his neck, struggled weakly.
He gasped for breath, his face pale, his lips completely bloodless.
He turned his head to look at the “person” holding him, his voice a weak mew.
“Not…wittle zombie!”
Xing Nuo’s speech was slurred, and he didn’t even understand what a zombie was.
The one holding Xing Nuo was a mid-level zombie in human form.
Its expression was stiff, its face pale, its eyes vacant and lifeless.
It stared at Xing Nuo for a long time.
Lifting the cub, the zombie sniffed him, letting out a guttural growl.
“You are!”
The little zombie’s life force was weak, and a strong scent of a high-level monster emanated from him.
The zombie couldn’t identify the high-level monster’s scent, but it instinctively sensed danger, an urge to drop the little zombie and flee rising within it.
However, being almost a high-level zombie itself, it managed to suppress its fear, its arm stiff.
It wouldn’t do to abandon its own kind.
The zombie’s eyes rolled stiffly, and it praised the little zombie.
“Looks like you’ve learned well. Don’t reveal your zombie identity to other humans. If you meet them, just say you’re human.”
Xing Nuo was confused, unsure how to respond.
But I am human!
The zombie didn’t care and carried Xing Nuo back.
“There was another little zombie who came here earlier. You two can be companions.”
The zombie was fast, the small, dangling cub not hindering its speed at all.
Soon, it brought Xing Nuo to a dilapidated building.
The building was dark, damp, and crumbling, like a shadowy lair, with an unknown liquid dripping from the ceiling.
Inside were several zombies, their expressions stiff but their appearances almost human.
Seeing the zombie return with a little zombie, a female zombie said with a deadpan expression:
“Why is there another little zombie?”
The zombies were currently undergoing rigorous training in imitating humans, and young zombies, being the focus of this education, were usually not allowed to wander outside.
Once their training was complete, they would disguise themselves as humans, infiltrate human settlements, gather information, and relay intelligence back to the zombie horde.
High-level zombies had developed intelligence and were beginning to engage in psychological warfare with humans.
The zombie shook its head, its slow mind struggling to process the situation.
“Probably saw the new batch of humans in the city and couldn’t resist the urge to take a bite.”
It was difficult for young zombies to suppress their instincts, their craving for blood and flesh often driving them to sneak out and attack humans.
Although most of them never returned.
“Luckily, I found him. A small zombie like him would be killed instantly if discovered by humans.”
The female zombie glanced at Xing Nuo and shook her head.
“Not necessarily.”
This little zombie looked quite human.
His eyes were lively, his expressions vivid. If not for the strong monster scent, he would be almost indistinguishable from a human.
Perhaps he could even infiltrate them undetected.
None of their zombies had successfully infiltrated human society yet.
Xing Nuo’s feet finally touched the ground. Listening to their conversation, his mind buzzed.
He listened in a daze, blinking, and finally understood.
He seemed to have been mistaken for one of them.
Liang Yun, on a whim, decided to watch some TV.
Halfway through, the screen suddenly flickered, showing a bloody, ruined landscape.
She felt dizzy, and when she regained consciousness, she found herself in an Infinite Flow dungeon world.
Luckily, she had landed near a group of veteran players who brought her, a newbie, to the human base.
Within half a day, Liang Yun was forced to accept the reality of her situation.
From the veteran players, she learned some information about the Infinite Flow world.
It was a world composed of countless horror dungeons. Humans pulled into this world had to earn points and items in these dungeons to survive.
The dungeons varied in difficulty, with the highest level being S+, which only the top-ranked players dared to challenge.
Ordinary people like Liang Yun, with their unfortunate luck, mostly chose easier dungeons to scrape by.
But even in these easier dungeons, many people died and never returned.
Liang Yun’s eyes were dazed, filled with the bewilderment of a newcomer.
“So, we can never return to the real world?”
Her cola, fried chicken, fries, burgers, hot pot…were they all gone?!
And what about the small apartment she had just put a down payment on? What would happen to her mortgage?!
A veteran player chuckled wryly and explained:
“It’s not that you can’t go back, it’s just…difficult.”
Even the top players were struggling to accumulate points and survive. For small fries like them, returning home might take an eternity.
A kind-hearted veteran player offered some reassurance:
“But don’t worry too much. This zombie dungeon is quite easy. Surviving for three days is enough to clear it. It’s one of the more forgiving dungeons.”
Liang Yun and the two other newcomers felt relieved.
Another player, seeing the heavy atmosphere, tried to lighten the mood.
“We’re lucky we ran into you guys. If we had landed in the zombie horde on the other side of the city, we’d be dead already, hahaha!”
The veteran players exchanged glances, their expressions changing slightly.
They had seen a child being carried away by a zombie earlier while hiding.
The child’s chances of survival were slim.
Xing Nuo, dragged back to the zombie lair, sat obediently on a small stool, his eyes dazed, blending in with the other zombies, learning to imitate humans.
This was the zombies’ temporary classroom.
The zombies sat below, some even squatting on the floor.
Their expressions were uniformly stiff and blank, their dark eyes fixed on the blackboard, their mouths slightly open, occasionally letting out guttural growls.
The instructor was a high-level zombie teacher.
The zombie teacher looked lifelike. If not for its slightly pale complexion and stiff eyes, it would be almost indistinguishable from a human.
“…The most difficult and complex aspect of humans is their facial expressions, which is the main reason our disguises fail.”
The zombie teacher pushed up its glasses and called on someone to answer.
“The little zombie who just arrived, tell me, what should you do if a human becomes suspicious of you?”
Xing Nuo, knowing he had been mistaken for a zombie, slowly stood up under the oppressive gazes of the other zombies.
After standing up, he noticed another little zombie, about his age, also standing.
The little zombie in front slowly turned its head, its movements stiff and mechanical, jerky and slow.
The little zombie had black hair and black eyes, blinking with apparent effort, its skin an unnatural, lab-grown white.
It looked at Xing Nuo, tilted its head, and pulled its lips back, revealing small, sharp teeth.
This is supposed to be a smile, right?
Xing Nuo froze, blinking, unsure whether to be scared or to smile back.
The zombie teacher, seeing the two little ones’ friendly interaction, pushed up its glasses.
“Alright, the zombie in front, sit down. You’re too stiff. Even after ten years of training and several evolutions, you still might not be sent to the human side.”
The teacher looked at the black-haired little zombie and shook its head.
Clearly a low-level zombie, with only rudimentary intelligence.
He encountered plenty of these in his classes; nothing special.
“Curly-haired little zombie in the back, answer my question.”
The curly-haired little zombie, Xing Nuo, obediently hummed, thought for a moment, and then shook his head.
“Don’t…know.”
He was a human who had infiltrated the zombie ranks. He didn’t know how to pretend to be a human while pretending to be a zombie.
Since arriving here, Xing Nuo had been in a daze.
His curly hair, ruffled by the wind, stuck up on his head. His face was pale from the cold, and his speech was slow and hesitant, making him look somewhat like a little zombie.
The high-level zombie teacher seemed to notice something and walked over to Xing Nuo.
Its lips pressed into a thin line, it bent down stiffly, and sniffed Xing Nuo intently.
After sniffing for a long time, it could only smell the strong scent of a monster and a faint, almost dissipating, human scent.
Strange.
How could a little zombie carry the scent of a boss-level monster?!
The only boss-level monster the zombie teacher had ever encountered was the Zombie King.
Unfortunately, he had been too far away to remember the Zombie King’s scent clearly and couldn’t identify the scent on the little zombie.
Could it be…
that this little zombie was related to the Zombie King?
